500 Summits of Green Mt.

"Once, at a party, I was asked what my favorite mountain in the world was. After a short deliberation, I stared out the window and said, 'Green Mountain'. The questioner was disappointed in the answer and didn't seem to understand. Hopefully this book will foster a better understanding." -Gerry Roach, Flatiron Classics

Green Mt.'s summit rock.

On Thanksgiving Day this week I topped out on Green Mt.'s 8144' distinctive summit rock for my 500th time ever, all but four of those ascents coming in the past 25 months (I went up Green for the first time in August of 2008, and hit it another three times before moving to Boulder a year later for grad school and embarking on the ongoing binge).

At first blush, and in a purely statistical light, there is nothing really that remarkable about this particular peak: 8144' high; ~ 2800' of vertical from my downtown doorstep to the summit; 2mi from trailhead to top, taking the most reasonably direct lines. My good friend Joe 's reaction to Roach's above quote was simply, "It must've been a cloudy day and Bear was obscured." Joe also affectionately refers to Green as "the weaker peak". It's true, of Boulder Mountain Park's triumvirate of 8000'+ peaks (South Boulder and Bear being the other two) Green is the shortest (by a couple hundred feet) and possesses the softest summit, with a couple pine trees partially blocking what would otherwise be 360 degree views.For me, the most remarkable thing about Green is its proximity – the summit is only 3.5 miles from my mailbox. On my best days I can close my apartment's front door and be slumped exhausted on the top – nearly 3000' in the sky – 43min later, using nothing but my own heart, lungs and legs to get there. This proximity to downtown predictably makes Green an eminently popular peak for Boulderites, which means that the mountain offers an impressive variety of routes ranging from the relatively gentle 800'/mi average grade and often buffed singletrack of the Gregory Canyon/Greenman Trail link-up to vintage goat paths that will ascend 1500' in a mile, test even the most agile mountain runners' technical skills and offer up access to airy scrambles on towering 1000' slabs of the Flatirons' Fountain Formation. I don't know of anyplace else that offers such a range of terrain, so close to a fully-realized urban center and with such a mild four-season climate.

While a trip up Green is definitely a welcome and even necessary departure from the hustle and bustle of daily life, I don't think it is so much an escape as it is a portal. Grunting up its slopes offers access to a classroom where the instructors are the weather, the rocks, the soil, the springs, the morning mist–the mountain – and the course content is so intangible as to be almost quantum mechanical (in a Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle kind of way) in its behavior: if one focuses too purposefully, tries too hard or actively searches too earnestly for lessons, the opportunities for same inevitably vanish.

Frustratingly, this weekend my mom directly asked me exactly what it is I can learn out on the mountain every day and I tried to explain that even though stating a definitive answer to such a question can't help but be insufficient and make one sound like an unoriginal imbecile (cliches, even if grounded in solid truths, just aren't that satisfying or convincing), this inconvenience doesn't render the ritual invalid or a waste of time. Engaging in a little suffering – however self-imposed, arbitrary and contrived – before breakfast each morning tends to demand some humility and injects some marked relief into the rest of the day, making things sharper, more inspired, more immediately aware of the powerful presence of being. And that seems really worthwhile.

#500, Thanksgiving morning.

I'll be the first to admit that actively tracking the accumulation of Green summits would seem to somehow cheapen or contradict the experience I purport to be seeking each day. But, for whatever reason, my mind draws some basic inspiration and satisfaction from such recorded repetition. There are without a doubt days where I have only made my way out the door in the morning because I didn't want to squander an opportunity to rack up another summit, however rote. However – and this is crucial – the very second I step onto the trail my motivation, without fail, instantly shifts from the crassly statistical and quantitative to the experiential and qualitative. The stark, black and white number might sometimes be what gives me the initial push to overcome inertia and lace up the shoes, but the mountain itself is always what ultimately lures me all the way to its summit.

Here's to being thankful for the first 500 Greens and for hoping I can be fortunate enough to notch another 500 in short order.